Attention!

Are you easily distracted? Do external circumstances dictate your mood and energy levels? Do you get so caught up in the details that you fail to see the bigger picture? When outside elements control the way you perceive things, it’s time for a shift of attention!

The ability to control where you focus your attention allows you to create your environment. It’s something we’re all born with (although it’s easy to forget!) – it gives us the energy to do work, finish projects and succeed in our endeavors big or small. By increasing your awareness to include the whole picture as well as the details (something that’s not easy for everyone – we all tend to get caught up in our own personal minutiae) you enable yourself to react to situations with enough rationality to direct them toward your objectives.

Analyze this…
Awareness is influenced by our surroundings (and what we perceive that to mean as individuals). You can consider your environment to be your home, your neighborhood, your state, your country, the world and so on… But the more you’re aware of, the broader your scope. The narrower your point of view, the smaller, and conversely, seemingly more important your thoughts are to you. But really, the opposite is true. If you’re caught in your own head, stuck only on the details, small things seem bigger and more important than they are. This happens all the time because awareness can only include things we take the time to notice.

Perspective
But if you recognize that we’re all connected, part of a universal energy wherein our individual highest good benefits the greater good, whether or not you had a bad hair day seems insignificant. Likewise, your concern over a rocky relationship lifts to reveal the real issue. If you stay in a situation where you’re unhappy without trying to fix it, you’re not benefiting anyone, least of all yourself or your partner. There is a world of love out there, waiting for you to be a part of it.

Focus
Consider that we become aware by placing our attention on something. Before placing your attention on that thing, it didn’t exist for you. Once you became aware of it, it’s real and part of your consciousness on some level. By observing, you make things alive in your own universe. On the other hand, when you put less attention on something, it tends to disappear. Problems don’t go away, no. But by focusing on the solution, you may find you get there quicker. Remaining focused on bad brings bad. Finding the positive incorporates it into your reality.

Is your life precisely what you wish it to be? If not, no matter the reason, you can still learn to control your attention, and thereby, learn to create it. Does that mean you can materialize something out of nothing? No. Awareness and action work hand in hand. But without the former, all the work in the world may prove useless.

Armed with greater awareness, you can be the change you wish to affect, in your own life and in the world at large.